On Television
Nightmare in the Gulf
Takes Its Toll
cormorant struggles out of
water black and thick with
oil. It staggers onto land
strewed with dead birds and marine
life. Soon the cormorant too will
die, its death throes illuminated by
the fires of a burning oil well.
A year ago the Iraqi Army re
treating from Kuwait damaged near
ly 800 oil wells along with huge oil
tanks, thereby poisoning 300 miles
of coast and 600 square miles of the
Persian Gulf.
Nine years before, award-winning
wildlife filmmaker Michael McKin
non had begun documenting the
fragile landscape-the breeding
grounds of cormorants and grebes,
the shallow coastal realm of crabs
and oysters. That footage contrasts
starkly with his extraordinary im
ages of the war's aftermath: The riv
er of oil that crept down the coast,
sinking into the sand to kill shrimp,
worms, and other tidal residents;
volunteers who sought to rescue
fouled birds and turtles; fire fighters
who battled oil well infernos ringed
with unexploded ordnance.
"As you looked out over the
burning land under a canopy of
black smoke," recalls McKinnon,
"it gave a taste of what nuclear win
ter might be like. It gave visual form
to our worst nightmares."
McKinnon's film airs as part of
TBS's Save the Earth programming,
a campaign to increase public
awareness of the United Nations
Conference on Environment and
Development to be held in Rio de
Janeiro, June 1-12, 1992.
"TIDES OF WAR," EXPLORER, FEBRU
ARY23, CABLE NETWORK TBS, 9P.M. ET
A Blending of Cultures Creates a Vibrant People
Once the Olmec, the Maya, and the Aztec ruled; then came the Spanish from
across the sea. From the intermingling of traditions and peoples over the centu
ries has emerged the soul of today's Mexicans. Filmmaker Bill Livingston took
his crew from the ancient ruins of Palenque to the modern-day barrios of Mexico City
and Ciudad Juarez. A subway conductor talks about life in the crowded capital, and
urban artists celebrate the vigor of a city beset with problems. One of Mexico's premier
ecologists glories in the annual return of monarch butterflies to their mountain sanctu
ary and welcomes the end of sea turtle slaughter along the Pacific coast. In a moving
visit with Rufino Tamayo shortly before his death, the famed painter speaks of what it
means to be Mexican, to be inheritors of the past, architects of the future.
"THE MEXICANS: THROUGH THEIR EYES," SPECIAL ON PBS, FEBRUARY 26, 8 P.M. ET
MARILYNGIBBONS, NGS STAFF
NATIONALGEOGRAPHICEXPLORERAIRS ON CABLENETWORKTBS, SUNDAYS9-1 I P.M . ET. WATCHNATIONALGEOGRAPHICSPECIALSON PBS;CHECKLOCALLISTINGS.